


what we feel (started way before we ever touched)

by ProbablyVoldemort



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Alternate Universe - World War II, F/M, Pirates, RMS Titanic, Song Lyrics, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-24 03:14:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21331348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyVoldemort/pseuds/ProbablyVoldemort
Summary: In every life, they're drawn to the ocean.  Again and again, over and over.  And in every life, one way or another, the ocean brings them together.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/John Murphy
Comments: 20
Kudos: 102
Collections: Chopped 2.0 Final Round





	what we feel (started way before we ever touched)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey hey! Thank you for tuning in to another round of Chopped!
> 
> This week we come to you with the Championship Round! Which means the winner of this round receives FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS and a book deal of their own! (I wish)
> 
> This round we've got:  
1\. Reincarnation AU!  
2\. Soulmate AU!  
3\. Forehead Touches!  
4\. Author's Choice! For which I have chosen Based On A Song!
> 
> The song of choice is Strangers by the Jonas Brothers (particularly the chorus but like the whole thing really fits this fic), who I am currently obsessed with and kinda mad I couldn't see them in concert when they were here. But like money. Also defs go listen to the song if you haven’t already and also go listen to it again if you have already listened to it. I’m probably listening to it as you read this. It’s a great song. 
> 
> This is a general warning right off to bat that all I know from these time periods mainly come from movies and a quick google search. I had a week to write this fic. That is not enough time to become an expert in all these different areas. So just suspend your disbelief if I didn't quite get, I dunno, Viking courtship rituals quite right.
> 
> Other characters do appear in this fic, but as they only appear in one life each, I opted against tagging them.
> 
> This fic won:  
1st Place Reincarnations  
1st Place Most Unique Pairing  
2nd Place Soulmates  
2nd Place Most Unique Time Period
> 
> Thanks to everyone who voted! Hope you enjoy!

_I just saw the lightning strike_  
_Knew it right then when I looked in your eyes_  
_And I said to myself, "it's no surprise we ain't strangers"  
_ _Strangers tonight_

Jon Alekson had the worst luck.

He hadn’t been paying attention to the chief as the ship came in, lost in a daydream, and that had landed him scrubbing the inside of the boat instead of being back in the village dancing and drinking ale and mead and maybe finding a girl to take home for the night.

By Odin, if the celebration of their more than successful raid was over by the time he finished, heads were going to roll. He’d done his part, damnit. He’d killed. He’d pillaged. He deserved to be at the celebration.

By the time he finished and the boat was all but shining, his drunken friends were already stumbling onto the shore.

“You need some mead,” Roan instructed, shoving his drinking horn into Jon’s hand.

He accepted it, taking a long drink, and returned it to its owner. He was about to leave, to head up to the village and fill his own horn, but Roan threw an arm over his shoulders.

“Let me tell you something,” he slurred, leaning heavily against him as they watched some of the others build a pile to start a bonfire. “You need to find yourself a wife.”

Jon rolled his eyes, laughing at Niylah as she tripped into the surf, taking Klark down with her as she tried to help her up.

“I’ve been trying,” he told Roan, attempting to extract himself. He really needed a drink. “Everyone’s spoken for, and we’re not meeting with another clan for months.”

“Well, you must try harder then,” Roan insisted. “Ever since I married—"

Jon tuned him out as he started on about Ontari. They’d only been married a year or so, but Roan liked to act like he was the only man to have ever had a wife. It wasn’t like anything in their marriage was overly special. Ontari wasn’t even with child yet, nor were any of Roan’s six mistresses.

Jon had been betrothed, once, but she’d died while they were still children, and his parents had been killed before they could find him a new promised wife. He’d had affairs, sure, but had yet to find anyone willing and able to marry him.

He was getting rather old, too. Nearing twenty without so much as a whisper of a wife was practically unheard of.

Someone started playing music, and a dance started up. Ontari stole Roan away, and Jon was finally able to escape to the village for a drink.

Klark smiled as he slid up beside her at the tavern, waiting in line for some ale.

He’d known Klark Jakobsdóttir most of his life, just as he’d known most everyone in his village. Her betrothed had been killed in a raid a few months back. She was still unmarried, and Roan had been trying unsuccessfully to add her to his collection of mistresses.

She’d changed into a dry jacket since he’d watched her get pulled into the ocean, though her braids were still wet, sticking to her face.

They got their drinks and made their way back down to the shore, the light of the bonfire making the ocean sparkle.

“You’ve got some dirt,” Jon said, gesturing at his forehead. It was sand, probably, or some of the grime he’d scrubbed from the boat, something she’d picked up during her impromptu swim.

Klark reached up, scrubbing at her face. “Did I get it?”

Jon shook his head. All she’d managed to do was smear it around. “Here.”

He pulled off his glove and reached out, brushing his fingers over her forehead, and froze.

Jon had known Klark most of his life, but he didn’t think he’d ever touched her before. If he had, if it’d been like this, he knew he would’ve remembered.

Because as soon as his fingers touched her face, it was like Thor himself had come down and struck him, lightning shooting through him from the place where they connected.

Klark gasped but didn’t pull away, and he couldn’t make himself move either. After the initial shock, the lightning faded into a pulsing energy, his blood humming with it. It didn’t make sense, but he knew it was because of Klark, because of something that their touch had ignited.

He didn’t want it to ever stop.

He was still holding her face, cupping it now, staring into her eyes as she leaned into his touch. They were so blue, sparkling like the sea from the light of the fire. And her lips. Odin, save him, he wanted nothing more in that moment than to kiss them.

A yell came from the group by the fire, too loud and too close and breaking through the moment.

Klark pulled back and the energy faded, leaving behind an emptiness that Jon was already aching to fill, an emptiness he knew that only she could fix. Klark seemed to feel it too, pulling off her own glove and gripping his hand tightly. There was no lightning this time, no shocking jolt of power, but the energy came back, both calming and exciting.

She glanced over at the fire again, at the people still dancing and shouting, and then back at him.

“Come on,” she said, tugging on his hand, and he followed her.

He’d probably follow her anywhere, but she only took him a short distance away, further from the others and deeper into the shadows.

“What was that?” he asked, as if she’d know. Maybe she did. Maybe she’d been blessed by Thor, carrying his lightning under her skin.

She watched him, her head tilted and her fingers brushing over his, tiny sparks erupting where they touched. “I don’t know,” she said, and then she was kissing him.

He tugged her against him, his fingers digging into her waist and her hair, hers cupping his face. It was magic, almost, so much more than any kiss he’d shared with anyone else, lightning coursing through him.

He didn’t want this to stop, didn’t want to have to pull away and rejoin the party, never wanted to leave Klark, to be without her.

He was in love. He didn’t know how, didn’t know when Freyja had interjected and made him fall for Klark, someone he’d known for years, but there was no denying it.

He was in love with Klark.

He tugged her closer, pulling away from her lips and pressing their foreheads together, needing to breathe but unwilling to part from her, from the thrill that came when they touched.

Her fingers brushed over his cheek, passing over his beard as they landed on his lips, and he pressed a kiss against them.

“I’m no one’s mistress,” she told him, voice low and rough, and he reached up, twining their fingers together so he could kiss her again.

“I’ve never wanted a mistress,” he admitted against her lips, and her answering laugh, soft and breathless, just made him kiss her again.

Freyja had clearly blessed their love, because her father accepted his proposal and they were married within a few months.

But because Freyja was also the goddess of death, it couldn’t last.

Not two years later, Jon found himself holding Klark in his arms, whispering his love to her as she bled out, an axe buried deep in her chest. They’d find each other again, he promised, in the next life, be it in Valhalla, Folkvangr, Hel, or this world once more.

He’d find her.

When she was gone, when there was nothing of her left, he hunted down the man who’d done this, a man too drunk on mead to watch his step, a man who’d swung his axe as he stumbled and fell. He hunted him down and tore into him, hacking away at the man well past the end of his screams, until his body was as wrecked as Jon’s heart.

He followed her not long after, killed in a raid, too distracted to watch his back.

John was eight when Lord and Lady Griffin visited his family’s estate, their daughter trailing along. They were both too full of energy to sit and listen to the negotiations for too long, wiggling in their seats, so they were sent outside.

John had no opinions of Clarke, not really. She was taller than him despite being a year younger, and he wasn’t all that fond of that, but otherwise she was unremarkable as every other noble he’d met.

“I’ll show you the cliffs,” he offered, whistling for the dog. He paused a moment, then offered his arm.

Clarke rolled her eyes, choosing to lift her skirts instead of hold his arm. “I can walk on my own, Duke,” she told him, lifting her nose.

“I’m not a duke yet, Lady Clarke,” he pointed out, starting for the cliffs.

They reached the cliffs without much note or fuss, and John watched the sea come into view beyond them. It was too foggy to see the islands or much of anything, really, but the cliffs were fun to scale.

Of course, he hadn’t considered Clarke’s skirt in this plan.

“What are we—?” Clarke cut off her own question with a shocked gasp, and he turned just in time to watch her slip and fall in the mud.

His parents would not approve of the laugh he couldn’t hold in, nor would they of how muddy he’d managed to get their guest.

Something hit him in the face, stopping his laughter, and he frowned at the clump of mud he pulled away. He looked at Clarke, sitting in the mud and pouting, and threw it back at her.

An hour later, they were both laying in the dirt, breathing heavily. Pigs were probably cleaner than they were. He was going to be in so much trouble once their parents saw them.

The dog, almost as mud soaked as they were, perked up and then took off back towards the house, and John sighed, pushing himself up in the mud.

“It’s time for dinner,” he told Clarke as he stood, watching her brush the mud off her face. He held out a hand to help her up.

“My parents will be so very—”

Her words cut off as she took his hand, but John barely noticed. As their skin met, a shock went through him, like he’d been struck by lightning.

That wasn’t all, though. There were also visions flowing through his mind, memories almost, of himself and a woman who he somehow knew was Clarke, but older. There was snow, a beach. She kissed him. He loved her. A wedding. Holding her as she died.

So many memories—for that was what they were, too vivid to be anything else—of a life he’d had.

A life with Clarke.

He was jolted back into the moment as Clarke tugged on his hand, using him to stand, and then they stood there for a moment, just staring at each other.

“Did you see…?” Clarke asked, trailing off. Her eyes were wide, a small dirty braid falling in front of them. She was still holding his hands. He nodded, and she nodded in return. “Good. I thought I might be going mad.”

Their parents were just as unhappy with them as they’d expected and made them wash themselves before dinner. Letting go of her to do so didn’t feel right, and he had to fight to stop himself from grabbing her hand.

When Clarke loudly proclaimed, “I want to marry John,” in the middle of dessert, he wasn’t exactly opposed to the thought. He didn’t want to marry anyone, really, but Clarke was his friend, even before the lightning and the memories. If he had to marry someone one day, she wasn’t a bad choice.

“You always say that you need to find someone for me to marry,” Clarke continued when all their parents did was stare at them. “I want it to be John. I love him.”

John didn’t really listen to whatever it was her mother responded with, too struck with how she’d stated it like it was a simple fact. She loved him. She’d known him for all of an afternoon, but she loved him.

It didn’t make sense, but he felt the same way. They’d known each other for an afternoon, but it felt like so much longer. An entire lifetime longer.

He loved her too.

So, yeah. If he was going to get married to someone one day anyway, why shouldn’t it be Clarke?

It worked like this:

The first touch was like lightning, shooting through them and lighting them up from the inside.

Then came the memories, scattered bits of the lives they’d had together. Never all of it, but the important parts.

For the first few months after the first touch, it hurt to be away from each other. There was an emptiness, an ache deep inside them that only went away when they were touching. It faded, eventually, and they no longer had to be right next to each other, but being alone the first few months was a nightmare.

After that, it got easier. They could be away from each other without feeling like they were missing a part of them. Their touch just ignited sparks, not lightning.

Again and again, they woke up in new bodies, new lives, and again and again, they found each other and they remembered.

A touch was all it took to upend her entire life.

John’s hand was still gripped in hers, he was still dangling off the edge of her ship, and if she hadn’t been suddenly, completely, hopelessly in love with him, she’d have dropped him. It would have been so much easier.

But she was in love with him, as inconvenient as it was, and the lightning was still shooting through her veins, so she called over some of her girls and they helped haul him back on board.

“Clarke,” he breathed, stepping closer. His hand trailed up her arm, leaving sparks in its wake, and he cupped her face, grinning at her.

She stepped out of his grip, her body already aching to touch him again.

“Captain,” she corrected, glancing away when he winced, ignoring the need to get closer to him. “It’s captain to you.” She looked at the others, gathered around to watch the commotion. “Get back to work!”

She pushed past her crew as she crossed the deck, glaring at anyone who tried to stop her on her way to her quarters.

She was just dropping down in her seat, gritting her teeth and telling herself that she could survive this, that she could make it through the next few months without giving in and touching him, when the door opened again.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and Clarke pressed her eyes closed, ignoring the parts of her that were screaming at her to go to him.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she grit out, not looking up at him. He moved closer, and her head shot up. “Do not take another step.”

He froze, frowning at her. “What is it?” he asked. “Are you with someone? I haven’t seen you with anyone.”

“I’m not with anyone.”

John threw out his arms. “Then what’s the issue?”

“The issue?” Clarke leaned forward, bracing herself on her desk. “The issue is that you’re a stowaway, John! The issue is that the only reason I didn’t kill you when we found you was because Raven recognized you, and I’ve got enough problems without your parents personally hunting me down. The issue is that we’re dropping you at the next fucking port! That’s already been decided!”

John looked just as confused as she felt, but this was easier. It was easier to yell at him than it was to find any other way to keep herself from leaping across her desk and kissing him.

“You don’t have to,” he said, crossing his arms and straightening with an air of the prince he was trying to pretend he wasn’t. “I don’t want to go back. That’s why I got on your ship.”

“You stowed away,” she reminded him. “You were never supposed to be here! And you _can’t_ stay here!”

“I could!” John took another step towards her, eyes wide. “Clarke—”

“Captain.”

John frowned at her and pressed on. “I could stay here. You could let me stay here.”

“I can’t.” Clarke sat back in her chair, moved her hands to the armrest, holding on to them to anchor her to her seat, to keep her from crossing the room. “We don’t have men on my ship. You know that.”

John sighed. “Clarke—”

“Captain,” she snapped again, because hearing him say her name like that was chipping away at her resolve.

“_Captain_.” He ground the word out between his teeth, stepping closer to the desk. “You know this is just hurting us. Let me stay. I can do…pirate things. We were Vikings, once, remember? I’m not just a runaway prince anymore.”

Why did he have to bring logic? She knew that refusing to acknowledge this, to hope she could drop him at a port before she caved, was only hurting them. She knew that being away from each other hurt him just as much as it hurt her, and she didn’t need to be reminded. Not about that, not about the possible skills he could’ve pulled over from their past lives.

She was already caving. Her fight was basically useless. A large part of her had already accepted that she’d be giving in long before they reached a port.

Would it really be that bad, having John around a little while longer? Would staving off the pain and the aches and the emptiness really be wrong?

“Fine,” she sighed, releasing her armrests from her grip, relaxing back in her chair. She dug a hand in her hair, looking back up at him and that damn hopeful spark in his gaze. Fuck, she loved him. “Fine. You can stay until we can stand to be away from each other, and then we’re dropping you at the first port we come to.”

“Deal.” He smirked at her, rounding her desk and coming closer. He planted his hands on the armrests of her chair, leaning into her, close enough that she could feel his heat but still not quite touching. “So, _Captain_. Permission to kiss you?”

Clarke considered it, even though she knew there was no question as to what she was deciding. As much as she wanted to keep this professional, as much as it would be easier to drop him at a port and never look back if she kept this distance between them, every part of her was screaming at her to just give in, to take the too easy step that would take away the ache and the emptiness.

“Permission granted, your highness,” she said, and then he was kissing her and she couldn’t remember all the reasons this was a bad idea.

*********

If anyone had noticed that John had stopped sleeping in the bunks, they didn’t say anything. Clarke knew her crew had noticed, they couldn’t have not, but they feared her just enough to not bring it up.

At least until the night of Raven and Echo’s wedding, when the rum was a little more free and Clarke had declared her first mate and her girl wife and wife.

“So,” Octavia said, dropping down next to Clarke on a bench. “You and the prince are fucking, right?”

Clarke choked on her rum, tearing her gaze away from where, as Octavia had referred to him, the prince had been swept up in a dance with some of the younger girls, and stared at her.

“What?” Octavia made a face. “Was it supposed to be a secret? Cause you’re not doing a good job if it is. Everyone knows.”

“Everyone?” Clarke looked back out at the dance, the deck lit up with lanterns, as pretty as it could be for a wedding.

“Everyone,” Octavia confirmed, taking another swig of her rum. “Even if his bunk wasn’t empty every night, it’d be obvious. He’s pretty fucking in love with you, Captain.”

It was kind of obvious, wasn’t it? Clarke had had just enough rum to decide that if everyone already knew, then it didn’t make sense for her to try to keep it a secret.

She pushed to her feet and crossed the deck, grinning at Charlotte and Madi.

“Mind if I steal him?” she asked, and the girls giggled and ran off.

John grabbed her hands, posture and frame too rigid for a pirate jig, belonging more in a ballroom in a palace somewhere.

“Everyone knows,” she told him, and he laughed.

“I could’ve told you that, Captain.” He grinned at her, too wide and too happy, so she had no choice but to kiss it off his face.

*********

“Captain,” Raven said, nodding at her. “We’ve heard rumours that the prince is being left at the next port.”

Clarke nodded, not looking up from her map. “That’s correct.”

“Well, the crew and I have been talking,” Raven hedged, and Clarke finally looked up at her first mate, shifting on the other side of the desk. “John’s the best cook we’ve had since Fox. We wouldn’t mind if you kept him around longer.”

She turned around and left, and Clarke stared after her.

Could she do that? Would they really not mind if she broke her no men on board rule to keep John around? Would it be worth it, objectively, the ever present chance of his parents hunting them down?

The door opened again, and John stepped in, a smile stretching across his face.

“Captain,” he said, and she grinned back, rounding her desk.

“Your highness,” she answered, wrapping her arms around his neck and dragging him down into a kiss.

The best lives were the ones where they met and everything worked out. They were both free and able to be together. They could spend the first months together, get over the worst of the pain and the emptiness, and then they got their whole lives together.

The worst lives were the ones where they only got a moment. A moment in a crowd, hands brushing together, only to never find each other again. A moment together before a disaster, before a rogue bullet or a runaway cart or some other accident took one of them from the other far too soon.

Almost as bad were the ones where one of them was already spoken for by the time they met, where the feelings they’d developed for someone else in this life had to fight against the ones suddenly pouring in from the others, where they couldn’t have more than the occasion touch of hands to fight off the ache that came from being apart.

Most lives, though, fell somewhere in between. They met. They remembered. They lived.

The sea breeze as the ship departed blew Clarke’s skirts around her. She had to plant a hand on her hat to keep it from blowing away as she waved at the crowds on the dock. The ocean seemed like home, like she belonged more on this ship than she did in her actual home, and she couldn’t explain it. The only other time she’d ever been on anything larger than a rowboat in a lake had been the ship that had taken her to England in the first place.

She’d been married then, a match made by her mother. She’d spent the better part of a year in England before she’d realized they’d only moved back there to be near Finn’s other family. That’d been three months ago, when she’d walked into his funeral and an entire second life he’d hidden from her, and she was all too eager to return to Canada.

But enough about Finn.

She had fallen in love with the sea as she’d tried to fall in love with her husband, and the voyage home wouldn’t be anywhere near long enough for her tastes.

The sea was free and so was she. At least until her mother found her another husband.

She turned away as the crowds faded into the distance, surveying the deck. Maybe she could explore a little while everyone was distracted, before anyone started paying attention to her enough to ask why she was snooping around.

Everything on the ship was shiny and new. People were laughing, children running around. She brushed her hand over the rail, the metal cold under her skin.

The breeze picked up again, and her hat, no longer anchored down with her hand, flew off, tumbling through the air and down the deck.

Clarke swore under her breath and hiked up her skirts, hurrying after it.

By the time she reached it, it was in the hands of a steward.

“I believe that’s mine,” she said, breathing a little harder after her short run.

He looked up at her, twisting her hat in his hands, and she was struck by how pretty a shade of blue his eyes were.

And then he smirked at her. “I don’t know about that, miss,” he said, raising a brow. “How do I know it’s really yours?”

Clarke stared at him a moment. Was he flirting? Was that what was happening? She was very out of practice. The ring she’d worn for the last year had detoured most advances.

She still couldn’t entirely tell, but she wasn’t opposed if that was, in fact, what was going on.

“I just ran here,” she pointed out, laughing. “How much more proof do you need?”

The steward shrugged. “How about your name?” he suggested. “Your name in exchange for the hat, Miss…?”

“Missus,” Clarke corrected, immediately wondering why she’d done so. “Clarke Collins. How does this convince you it’s my hat?”

“Only someone with such a lovely name would have such a lovely hat,” the steward said, holding her hat out with a flourish. She took it from him, his gloves soft as they brushed against her fingers. 

He was still smirking at her, and as she situated her hat back on her head, Clarke tried to determine how to bring up the fact that her husband was dead, that she was free and unattached and perfectly willing to reciprocate what she was fairly certain he was putting forward.

“If there is anything else I can do for you, don’t hesitate to let me know,” he said, and Clarke was almost positive now that this was flirting, even though he thought she was married.

She smiled at him. “But however will I find you if I don’t even know your name?”

“Murphy,” he said, winking at her. “Johnathan Murphy.”

“Well.” She nodded at him, racking her brain for anything she could think of that would keep this conversation going and coming up empty. “It was lovely to meet you, Mr. Murphy.”

He took her bare hand in his gloved one. “You as well, Mrs. Collins,” he said, and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

The jolt of electricity, lightning almost, that shot through her at the touch of his lips made her gasp, squeezing his hand.

The memories came next, glimpses of hundreds of lives they’d shared. Meetings, like this one. Marriages. Children. Happiness. Pain and sorrow and loss. Love.

She met his eyes and knew he’d seen the same thing.

Johnathan Murphy was no stranger. In life after life, she had loved him, and she would love him again.

He had to pull away because there was really only so long you could kiss someone on the hand without someone saying something, and Clarke was already mourning the loss.

There was no way she could touch him, not right now, not with all the people on deck, not with the gloves as part of his uniform.

She was sorely tempted to ignore the rules of society, to tug him up against her and kiss him in the way she hadn't in years, not since their last lives had ended. She wanted to wrap herself up in him and never let go, or at least not until they adjusted to having each other back and the pain and the emptiness subsided.

She could tell he was in the same state, his hands pulling at his gloves until he glanced around, saw the other workers watching them.

"Is your husband on board as well?" he asked her, voice almost pained.

She'd forgotten. She'd forgotten that he thought she was married. She'd forgotten the extra pain that came with the lives in which one of them was already spoken for by the time they met.

"My husband is buried north of London," she told him, stepping closer. She could see the relief on his face at her words, and the proximity helped a little, though it didn't do much to stave off the emptiness in her heart.

"My condolences," he said, though he didn't sound all that sorry for her loss. One of his hands reached out, brushed against her side for a second before dropping again. It wasn't enough. It wasn't anywhere near enough.

"Save your condolences for the other wife I didn't know he had," she said, and he laughed, bright and shocked.

Maybe it was bad form for him to laugh at the pain she'd gone through, but she didn't care. Suddenly Finn’s other wife and their children had faded from her memory, the humiliation she'd felt upon learning her husband had been married for the better part of a decade before they'd even met no longer mattered.

In every life, she loved his laugh. She loved all of him, but his laugh was one of her favourite parts.

She'd only known this version of him for a few minutes, but she already loved this him just as much as the rest.

"I could use some help," she said, breaking the silence they'd fallen into, just gazing into each other's eyes. "The arrangement of the furniture in my room is nowhere near acceptable. It should take us hours to adjust it to my liking."

He grinned at her, and, god, how she wished she could kiss him.

"I will do everything I can to help you."

He told another steward what he was doing and she made a show of refusing the extra help. Once they crossed the ocean, she'd never see any of these people again. She could act like a spoiled girl using her mother's money to sail first class for a few days if it got her alone with him.

It was so hard to not touch him as they made their way through the halls to her room, so hard to keep her hands to herself, to wait the few minutes it would take to settle the emptiness in her stomach, the need and the pain knowing that the fix was right there beside her.

The door to her room closed behind her, and she shoved him up against it, crashing her lips into his and digging her hands into his hair.

"Take off your gloves," she told him between kisses. "Please."

He obliged, and the relief she felt as he cupped her face made her whimper.

"I love you," he whispered against her lips. "I love you."

She whispered the words back, again and again. She barely had enough presence of mind to make sure the door was locked before they stumbled towards her bed, shedding their clothes along the way.

"Johnathan this time," he told her after she'd called him John, kissing his way down her neck.

"Clarke." She gasped, digging her fingers into his hair. "I go by Clarke."

They lay there after, wrapped up in each other and her sheets, sparks shooting through her wherever they touched.

"Johnathan," she said, mouth curling up at his name. She rose up on her arms, looking down at him. He reached up, smiling lazily at her as he brushed her hair off her neck. "Marry me."

His touch froze and he stared at her, wide eyed and mouth dropped open.

"We haven't known each other a day," he said, and she couldn't help but laugh.

"We've known each other much more than a day."

"In this lifetime," Johnathan corrected, smiling at her again. "Won't people talk?"

"I don't care if people talk," she declared, leaning down to kiss him. "Let them talk. I love you, Johnathan Murphy. I have loved you all our pasts and I will love you all our futures. Whether we've known each other a day or a year in this life, I will still love you. So please. Marry me."

"Clarke--"

"And my mother will never let us be together in this life unless we're already married," she hurried to add. "So we have to marry before we leave this ship. And people will already be talking anyway, what with my husband having another family and all, so, really, it shouldn't matter--"

Johnathan tugged her down, recapturing her lips with his and silencing her rambling proposal. She couldn't say that she minded, not really, because kissing him was really all she ever wanted to do and because lightning coursed through her as they kissed, but she had been trying to make a really good point.

After a few long moments, Johnathan pulled back enough to rest their foreheads together.

"I'll marry you," he told her, and she couldn't not kiss him again. He laughed against the kiss, indulging her for a moment before pulling back again.

"But," he said, and Clarke sighed. "I'm not asking the captain to marry us the day we met. We'll marry before we dock, but not for a few days."

“Fine,” Clarke agreed, snuggling against him. His fingers trailed over her arm, leaving sparks and goosebumps in their wake. “But we’re getting married before we dock.”

Unfortunately, Johnathan was not in a position to spend the entire journey in her bed. He had a job, and, though he promised her he'd be quitting as soon as they docked, he couldn't exactly ignore his duties entirely.

"Once we're on land," he whispered between kisses by the door, he back in his uniform and she only in a robe. "Once we're on land, we can do whatever we want."

She kissed him again, holding him close and trying to prolong the moments they had left before he had to leave. She knew it would be worse if someone caught him in here, that that would take away any chance they had at all at being together, but at the moment she didn't care, not really. At the moment, he was with her, and she didn't want him to leave.

"I'm working at dinner," he told her, thumb brushing against her lips. She was drinking him in just as much as he was her. She wouldn't see him for a few hours, had to memorize everything she'd be missing. "I'll see you there."

He kissed her once more, long and sweet and far too short, and then he was gone, and she was left with only his gloves in her hand to remember him by.

She was empty without him, her heart aching and longing for him. It was always like this after they found each other. The crossing wouldn't be long enough for it to wear off, but that would be okay. Soon they'd be married, and they could wait out the rest of it wrapped in each other.

*********

She was on edge during dinner. She'd redressed, taken more care with her hair and her makeup than she had since before her husband had died, and had changed her dress six times before settling.

It was silly. She knew it was. She'd known Johnathan for centuries. He'd seen her in every way he could. They'd been vikings and pirates and pioneers and monarchs and peasants. He wouldn't care what she was wearing, if they even saw each other.

But she picked a dress she thought he'd like, one that brought out her eyes and clung to her in exactly the latest style.

She was seated with others from the first class, trying to pay attention to the conversation when all she wanted to do was scan the dining room for him.

He found her before she found him, lightning shooting through her skin from where he'd dragged his fingers across the back of her shoulders as he passed. She gasped, turning and catching his eye as he walked passed, offering her a small smile as he continued his conversation with another passenger.

She couldn't keep her eyes off him after that, watching him move around the dining room. Her dinner companions probably found her rude, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

She dropped her napkin the next time he came near, just so he'd stoop to pick it up and she could "accidentally" brush their fingers together.

She was hopeless. She was always hopeless, when it came to him.

*********

There was a knock on her door that evening, when she was brushing out her hair. She pulled her robe tighter around herself, and crossed the room to answer it.

She was kissing him before the door had entirely closed, gripping his collar and holding him close.

"Have we known each other long enough for you to marry me yet?" she asked, and he laughed, kissing her again.

"Give it a few days," he told her, and she pouted at him until he kissed it away.

*********

As much as she'd rather spend every moment with Johnathan, Clarke could say that the novelty of a secret relationship had yet to wear off. They hadn't had to keep their relationship secret in at least a few dozen lives, and sneaking around was it's own kind of fun.

Johnathan slept in her room. The passengers were asleep at night so he didn't have much to do then, so he wasn't missed. She could wrap herself up in him and pretend they were really together again.

The next morning, he was back at work. He dropped a note in her lap as he passed, directions to a service hallway where no one would bother them and a time. She managed to sneak in, and they got a few blissful moments before he had to return to work.

She took advantage of his job as much as she could with a simple, "Mr. Murphy, I require some assistance," and he'd follow her into her room under the pretense of rearranging. He told her that his coworkers called her high maintenance, that she was among the most demanding of the passengers, but she only laughed it off.

When he couldn't sneak away, she spent her time at the railings, watching the ocean fly by.

She'd been a pirate once, which explained her draw to the sea.

She missed that life, as hard as it'd been. She missed the freedom that came with running away from home, with running her own ship and crew. She missed the open ocean and the breeze in her hair and no one around to tell her what to do or who to marry.

"How is your day, Mrs. Collins?"

She turned at the sound of his voice, beaming at him as she leaned back against the rail.

"Much better now that you're here, Mr. Murphy," she said. He grinned back, and she closed her eyes in bliss for the few moments when he pressed a kiss to her hand.

She turned back to the ocean then, watching it fly past, and he settled in beside her.

"Have you ever considered being a pirate?" she asked him. There were too many people too close for her to really say what she wanted to.

"I have not," Johnathan said, bumping their shoulders together for a little too long to be accidental. "I've got much better accommodations on this ship than I'd have on a pirate ship, and my captain doesn't threaten to leave me at every port."

Clarke glanced over, wondering whether he was still bothered by that lifetime, so many lifetimes ago, but he was watching her with a teasing grin.

"Maybe if you were a stowaway, this captain would be trying to loose you, too," she said, and he laughed.

"I should head back to work," he said, sighing. "My superiors haven't been too happy I've been spending all my time with certain passengers."

"Oh, that's too bad," Clarke said, turning to lean on the railing again, smiling coyly. "I suppose I'll have to find someone else to help me move my vanity, then."

Johnathan grinned wider, glancing over at another steward who'd been watching them. "I can help you with that," he told her. "I wouldn't want to get a complaint that I'm _not_ helping a passenger in need."

*********

"Marry me?" she whispered, pressing a kiss under his ear.

Johnathan laughed, guiding her face over so he could kiss her. "In the morning," he whispered against her lips.

She pulled back, grinning at him. "Really?"

"Really." He kissed her again. "We can head out early and find the captain."

She kissed him again, tugging him closer to her. "I love you," she told him. "And if I were still a pirate captain, this whole marriage thing would be so much easier."

He laughed and rolled them over. "I love you, too," he said, pressing kisses over her face. "When we get there, I'll buy us a boat and we can pretend we're pirates."

"That's very romantic," she murmured against his lips. "The most romantic thing you've ever said to me."

Johnathan snorted and kissed her again.

She was tugging him down, closer, wrapping herself around him, when the boat shook.

Johnathan pulled back, and Clarke watched him. She didn't know that much about how boats worked in the 20th century, but she did know that none of this would've been a good sign back in the 17th.

"Did we stop moving?" she asked, and he shook his head. “What was that?”

"I don't know." He kissed her again and then climbed out of bed, searching the floor for his clothes. "I'll go find out. I’m sure it’s nothing."

She kissed him before he left, and set about getting herself dressed. She still didn't know what was happening, but if help was needed, she'd do whatever she could.

It took too long for Johnathan to return. When he did, he closed the door slowly behind him, staring blankly into the room with a mix of confusion and concern on his face.

“What is it?” she asked, and he looked up at her.

“We’ve hit an iceberg,” he said, words almost a question. Clarke blinked at him.

“What?”

“We hit an iceberg,” he repeated slowly, stepping further into the room. “Clarke, the Titanic is sinking.”

Everything after that moved too quickly. She and Johnathan ran around her room, throwing her essentials into a suitcase and she pulled on a coat.

He kissed her, hard and fast, and then tugged her into the hallway and out onto deck.

He left her for a few minutes, talking to some of the other workers, and Clarke smiled tensely at the few others who’d emerged from their rooms.

“Why were you holding hands with a steward?” an older, prim lady asked, and Clarke rolled her eyes.

“Because we were sleeping together a few minutes ago,” she told her, and the lady’s eyes widened.

Clarke had been on a sinking ship before, back in her early days as a pirate. It hadn’t been fun then, and it wasn’t fun now. Then, at least, they’d been near the equator. The water had been warm.

Here, they’d hit an iceberg. Those who didn’t make it into the lifeboats weren’t going to have much of a chance.

She smiled at Johnathan when he came back, his returning smile strained.

“Hey,” he said, cupping her face. She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned into him. “They’ll start loading up a lifeboat soon. You’ll be on it.”

Clarke dropped her smile. “And you.”

“Not this one,” he told her, brushing her hair back from her face. “Women and children first. I’ll be on another later.”

“No.” Clarke held him tighter, shaking her head. “No. I’ll wait with you.”

“Clarke, please,” he whispered, closing his eyes and pressing their foreheads together. “Please get on this lifeboat. I can’t lose you.”

Clarke’s own eyes closed, filling with tears. “I can’t lose you either.”

She kissed him then, because the secrecy of their relationship no longer mattered, not when the ship was sinking and Johnathan was insisting she get in a lifeboat without him.

“Please,” he whispered, barely moving away. “I’ll be on the first one they let me on, okay? We’ll find each other on shore, and we’ll get married and we’ll get that boat and we’ll be together.”

Clarke didn’t want to leave him. She didn’t want to climb in a lifeboat and be safe, not when he was still on the ship.

She pulled back to argue more, to insist he either get on the boat with her or she was staying with him.

But then she saw the pleading, desperate look in his eyes, and she remembered all the times they’d lost each other before. She had a chance to be safe, to stop him from worrying for the next little while. Shouldn’t she take it to save him from that?

“You promise?” she asked, and the way his body relaxed wasn’t quite enough to tell her she’d made the right decision in getting in the lifeboat, but it was close.

“I promise,” he whispered, kissing her again, and Clarke clung to him and his promise as long as she could.

*********

Anya sighed heavily when Clarke pushed the door open and approached her desk.

“We haven’t heard anything new since this morning,” she told her as she approached.

“Nothing?” she asked, gripping the edge of the desk. “You’re sure?”

“Mrs. Collins, can I be frank?” Clarke hesitated a moment before nodding. “Everyone who was on the Titanic and survived and who wants people to know they survived has already been here. Your steward is either dead, or—”

“He’s not dead,” Clarke snapped, her grip tightening. “He can’t be dead. He promised.”

“Of course he did.” Anya sighed. “Then that means he doesn’t want to be found.” She folded her hands together. “It’s been over a month, Mrs. Collins. We have your address on file. If this Johnathan Murphy ever makes it in here, we’ll send him there.”

Clarke stared down at her hands for a long moment, knuckles white with how tightly she was holding onto the counter.

Maybe she was right. Maybe she should stop waiting. Her mother wanted her to come home. She’d spent weeks in a tiny hotel room, waiting for any sign that Johnathan had made it.

She should go home. She should go back to her mother and the life she’d had before she’d married Finn.

She should move on from this, and trust that Johnathan would find her one day.

So she sighed and nodded.

“Okay,” she said, prying her fingers off the desk. She nodded again, backing away. “Okay. Send word if you hear anything.”

Anya nodded and offered her a smile, and then Clarke turned around and left.

She caught a train later that afternoon, not willing to wait long enough to change her mind once she’d made her decision, and spent her time scanning the crowd.

He didn’t appear, and she had to board, but she pressed up against the window as they started pulling away.

There was a flash in the crowd of dark hair, a brief glance of a man that could’ve been him, but they were too far away before she could really tell for sure.

But it was okay, she told herself as she sunk back into her seat. It was okay, because if it was him, he’d be on the next train.

He’d find her. She’d left her mother’s address with Anya.

He was still alive. He’d made it onto a lifeboat. He’d promised.

He’d find her and they’d get married and get a boat and they’d live happily ever after.

She would see him again in this life.

She had to.

Murphy shouldered through the crowd of soldiers on deck towards the railing, Green on his heels. The dock was full of people. Most probably didn’t know any of the Canadians on board, but he’d heard they were usually grateful for the help coming in.

“Do you see her?” Green asked, trying to peer over heads and get a good look at the welcoming committee.

“I don’t know what she looks like,” Murphy pointed out, sighing. “So, no.”

“I’ve shown you her picture,” Green reminded him, and Murphy sighed again. 

He had shown her the picture of his girl, far more often than Murphy would’ve liked and almost always accompanied by stories. It was a picture from their wedding, a few weeks before Harper got shipped off as a nurse, but it was grainy enough that there was no way Murphy could’ve picked out a girl he’d never met in a crowd of so many people.

“I’m sure we’ll find her soon,” Murphy assured him, jostling slightly as the ramp was lowered and people started rushing off the ship. “And she’d better have a friend for me.”

Green laughed, and then they were on the docks, scanning the crowds. 

It took less time than Murphy expected for a blonde blur to crash into his friend, holding him tightly, and then Green and who Murphy presumed to be Harper were kissing rather passionately, and he was trying to find something else to concentrate on.

Which was how he ended up meeting the amused look of another girl, standing a little behind Green and Harper. He’d mostly been joking about Harper having a friend for him, but this girl was pretty, dolled up more for a night out than meeting a ship full of sailors, and she was holding two purses, one of which was presumably Harper’s. He wouldn’t be complaining if his joke turned into an actuality.

“Friend of Harper’s?” he guessed, and she shrugged.

“Maybe I just enjoy standing near displays of affection,” she countered, the lilt of her voice telling him that she hadn’t come over on one of the boats and that Harper must have met her here.

He laughed. “Murphy,” he said, holding out a hand. “I met Green on the boat.”

She smiled at him, reaching out to shake it. “Clar—_oh._”

Murphy barely had a moment to register the shock of electricity that came with her touch before she was throwing herself at him, her arms wrapping tightly around his neck.

The memories were all he needed to know why. All the lives and love they’d shared fading to the background of the few that really mattered.

The last time he saw her, loading her into a lifeboat and promising he’d see her soon, that he’d find her in America and they could marry there before her mother found out. Holding her hand until he couldn’t reach her anymore, watching her be rowed away.

And then what came after. Screams. Terror. A sinking ship. Icy water burning his lungs.

He gripped her back just as tightly, burying his face in her hair and breathing her in.

They’d found each other. They always found each other. Their other lives didn’t matter as much as the one they had right now.

“Did you make it?” he whispered. He didn’t know what he’d do if she said no, if she’d drowned or froze that day. There was nothing he could do to change it, but it didn’t matter.

She nodded, and he let out a relieved breath. “Did you?”

He hesitated, the memory of choking on water too fresh for something that’d happened in another life. “I don’t think so.” She gripped him tighter.

He held her a moment longer and then pulled back, one of his hands rising to cup her cheek, brushing some of her tears away with his thumb.

She looked a little different than the last time he’d seen her, but then again so did he. They always did.

But her eyes were the same, blue like the sea, and it was her. It was always her.

He was kissing her before he could think about how odd it would look to Green and Harper, him showing up in England and kissing the first girl he saw.

He didn’t care what they thought. He didn’t care what anyone thought right now, didn’t care about anything but Clarke.

They were supposed to have time. The Titanic wasn’t supposed to sink. They were supposed to get married and have a life.

After the war, maybe this life they’d get a chance.

When they needed to breathe, Clarke pressed her forehead against his, gripping his coat tightly like there was any chance he’d be moving away.

“Well, Clarke has clearly already introduced herself to your friend.”

Clarke was the one to pull back, just enough so she could throw a sheepish grin over at the Greens.

“You must be Monty,” she said, releasing him from one of her hands so she could shake his. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Murphy mourned the loss of the touch even as they were still wrapped around each other. He dreaded the fast approaching moment when he’d have to let her go entirely. The first month or so, when the memories were so fresh and the electricity buzzed under their skin, he felt so empty and anxious without her. He’d never choose to not find Clarke again, but the first weeks after they did were a nightmare if they had to part.

As excited as he was to shoot some Nazis, he really hoped the worst was over before he got sent away from her.

Harper was introducing herself to him, so he had to tune back into the conversation, forcing an arm from Clarke to shake her hand.

“Green has only told me about you,” he said, smirking at his friend. “Seriously. You are the only thing he talks about.”

Harper laughed, and Green blushed, and Murphy considered his job here done.

“Well, I’m starving,” he said, wrapping his arms back around Clarke. “You got anywhere to eat in this country?”

*********

Surprisingly, they made it to a restaurant before anyone called them on their apparent relationship.

“So you two know each other.”

“Yes,” Murphy said at the same time Clarke said, “No.”

“It feels like we do,” Clarke corrected, which was basically true. They didn’t know the specifics of each other’s lives, not yet, but he knew Clarke and she him.

Clarke was leaning into him on their side of the booth, her hand playing with his under the table. Harper and Green only seemed half concerned with getting answers on what was going on between them, instead more caught up in seeing each other again.

So he turned his attention back to Clarke, who less than an hour ago he hadn’t even known he was missing and who he now couldn’t imagine living without.

He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Marry me.”

She turned to look at him, blue eyes wide. Across the table, Green choked on his water.

“We haven’t known each other a day.”

It sounded like a protest, but the with the way she was smiling at him, he knew it was only an echo of his words the last time they’d had this conversation. Then, they’d waited too long and they’d never gotten a chance.

“Yes,” Clarke blurted, and then she was kissing him again, and god he never wanted this to end.

*********

A few hours later, he was in a church in his dress uniform, Green at his side and a tremble in his hands. This was far from the first time he’d married her, but he always found himself to be nervous.

“Did you really not know Clarke before today?” Green asked, and Murphy tore his eyes from the door to look at his friend.

“Not…really?” Murphy hedged, scrubbing at his nose. “It just…it feels like I’ve known her forever.”

Green nodded, smiling at him. “I know what you mean.”

Murphy wondered whether what Green said was true. Did he really know what he meant? Was it possible that they weren’t the only ones who found each other again and again in a hundred different lifetimes?

He almost asked, almost outed the secret he’d kept for a thousand years, but then the door was opening.

Clarke walked in, arm in arm with Harper, stealing his breath. Her powder blue dress made her eyes pop, and all thoughts that weren’t of her faded away, everything in the room that wasn’t her faded away.

The wedding was one of the shorter ones they’d had, and it only took a few minutes before they were pronounced husband and wife.

Clarke Murphy. His wife.

Every time still felt like the first.

*********

They got two weeks this time before Clarke was sent into battle as a nurse.

Clarke had a flat, and that was where they spent most of their time together, curled up in her bed and learning everything they could about this version of each other.

Clarke told him there was another her out there, the one that’d survived the Titanic, that she’d already lived through the war. She didn’t remember much of her last life after the ship, and she didn’t know who won. She’d died on the battlefield, a nurse in that lifetime, too. She did remember that.

He hoped that wouldn’t be the case this lifetime.

Two weeks wasn’t enough to save him from the emptiness and anxiousness that came with their separation. He held onto her at the train station as long as they were allowed, trying to memorize everything about her, just in case this was all they got in this life.

“I’ll see you soon,” she promised, voice a whisper, their foreheads pressed together.

He echoed her words, holding her tight just a moment longer, and then she was gone.

“I think we need a drink,” Green said, clapping him on the shoulder after the train that carried their wives had disappeared from sight.

The emptiness was already clawing at him, urging him to run after the train and get back to her, eating away at his gut.

“I think we need more than one.”

*********

Murphy ended up in a field hospital. He’d hit his head, needed stitches, and they were watching to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with his brain or something. He’d never been a doctor in any of these lives. He didn’t know how brains worked, but he was pretty sure his was fine.

He wished Clarke was here. Green had dropped him off, but they’d kicked him out. The nurses and the doctor were nice enough, but he wished he knew someone, that he wasn’t entirely alone.

He had his eyes closed, trying to imagine that Clarke was there, that he could just reach out and touch her, when something a nurse was saying caught his attention.

“—and then Clarke here ran out and—"

“Clarke?”

His eyes snapped open and he scanned the tent, eyes landing on the group of nurses gathered not too far away. Their words had cut off at his call, and they were watching him.

One of them broke off, coming closer, and it was clear immediately that this was not his Clarke. She was a few decades older than his Clarke, but there was something about her that seemed familiar.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, smiling at him as she neared the head of his bed.

He shook his head. “I just thought—” He broke off when he caught sight of her eyes. Their shade of blue was one he’d never forget, no matter how many lifetimes they went through.

“You thought what?” she asked, and he realized he’d just been staring at her.

“Clarke,” he said again, his lips twitching into a smile. “Clarke Collins.”

Her own smile faded into confusion. “Do I know you?”

He shrugged. “Not this me.”

She stared at him a moment longer. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was that made her realize who he was, what part of him carried over between lives for her to pick him out, but he knew the exact moment that she figured it out. Her hands fisted his sheets, her mouth and eyes opening wide.

“Johnathan?” she whispered, like she couldn’t quite believe it.

He smiled softly at her, at the thought of the life they could’ve had if they’d just been on a different boat.

“I go by Murphy this time,” he told her, and she stifled a sob, dropping down next to the bed and gripping his hand.

He’d never touched her when she wasn’t, well, his. He’d never met her in a lifetime when he belonged to a different her and she to a different him. It wasn’t lightning. The energy beneath his skin wasn’t all consuming.

But it helped, a little. Took the worst of the emptiness that had come with being away from her.

Another nurse stopped near his bed, asked if they needed anything.

“Everything’s fine,” Clarke told her, barely glancing away from him. “He’s a friend of my daughter’s. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“You have a daughter?” Murphy asked, after the nurse had moved along. It probably wasn’t the most important piece of information they needed to discuss, but his Clarke didn’t remember much of her last life, and he’d always been curious about the parts of their lives that were lost to the past.

Clarke smiled at him, sad and hollow, and he was suddenly struck with the fact that this Clarke was almost three decades older than she’d been when he’d loaded her into a lifeboat. She was almost three decades older than him.

Everything about this felt off, like this version of him and this version of her were never supposed to meet.

“_We_ have a daughter,” Clarke corrected, voice low and soft, and his breath caught in his throat. “We never got that wedding, so my mother fudged the dates of Finn’s death and we pretended she was his, but she’s yours, Johna—Murphy. We have a daughter.”

This was far from the first time they’d had a kid. He was practically a professional father at this point.

But he’d never considered that there might be others, ones that Clarke hadn’t found out about until after he died. He’d never considered the possibility that he might’ve had kids he’d never known about.

“Oh,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. What could he say? Should he apologize for not being there for her and their daughter? For not making it into a lifeboat and drowning?

Clarke saved him from having to figure anything out, squeezing his hand and smiling at him. “Would you like to see a picture?”

He nodded and she dropped his hand, reaching behind her and unclasping a locket from behind her neck.

“There’s one of her as a baby and one from just before I left for England,” she said, slipping it into his hand. He opened it slowly. “Her name’s—”

“Harper.”

Clarke broke off, staring at him. “What?”

“This is Harper,” he said, his eyes glued to the pictures in the locket, to the girl smiling up at him.

“Yeah,” Clarke said slowly. “How did you know that?”

Murphy turned to look at her, something stuck in his throat. “I’ve met her,” he said slowly, his fingers brushing over the locket. “In England. I met her husband on the boat over and she was waiting at the docks with…you. She’s the reason I found you this time.”

Clarke laughed. As thrown as he was by the fact that he’d already met his daughter, the fact that she was at his wedding and that he’d spent more time with her than he’d spent with the Clarke sitting next to him, that his daughter was a year older than this version of him, he couldn’t help but be distracted by her laugh. He loved her laugh, every version of it.

“Her husband?” she said, and Murphy wasn’t sure why that was the part she’d found funny. “She and Monty finally got it together, huh?”

“What do you…?” Murphy cut himself off, his eyes drifting back to the locket. “Were they not together when you left?”

“God no.” He looked back up at Clarke, at her brilliant grin. “Those two have been dancing around each other since they were children. I was starting to think they’d never figure it out.”

They talked for a while, about everything this Clarke had done in the decades since he’d seen her last, about how they’d married just hours after meeting in this life, how she’d mocked him for asking her to do exactly what he’d been so hesitant to do in their last one.

For a little while, he didn’t feel so alone. The emptiness wasn’t as strong with her here, and, if he knew Clarke at all, he was pretty sure she felt the same.

“She doesn’t remember much after the boat,” he told her, twisting his wedding band around his finger. “Not Harper. Not this. But she does know you don’t make it out of this war.”

Clarke’s smile turned sad, and she reached out to take his hand. “I can handle that,” she told him, and he thought that maybe she could. “I’ll be closer to seeing you again. Promise me something.”

He nodded. “Anything.”

“Promise me you’ll make it back to her,” she said, still smiling at him. “We deserve more than a rushed wedding and a couple of weeks.”

He laughed softly, squeezing her hand. “I’ll do my best.”

Green came in not long after, asking after Murphy and looking more than a little shocked to see his mother-in-law by the bed of his friend. Green blushed and stammered when Clarke pointed out his ring, but she only hugged him and congratulated him on the marriage and made him promise to get home to her daughter.

Murphy watched them, throwing out the occasional comment, but mostly thinking about how much things had changed in less than an hour.

Green was his son-in-law, technically speaking. Green was his age, more or less, but he was married to his daughter. He had half a mind to give him some half-threatening speech like he’d given in past lives to the husbands or suitors of other daughters, but that wasn’t his place, not in this life. The Murphy that would’ve had that right had drown months before Harper had taken her first breath.

He thought back to that moment in the church, when he’d wondered if he and Clarke were the only ones this happened to, whether Monty really did know what he’d meant, and wondered if maybe something that made this happen might be genetic.

“It was lovely to meet you, Mr. Murphy,” she told him when he was discharged, her smile sad.

He wanted to hold her, to go back in time and, orders be damned, climb in that lifeboat with her. He wanted to save her from having to mourn him, from having to raise their daughter alone.

But he couldn’t do any of that. This wasn’t his Clarke, not anymore, and he wasn’t her Murphy.

He could be there for his Clarke, though, as long as he made it out of this war.

“You as well, Mrs. Collins,” he said instead of everything he wanted to, everything he couldn’t. He lifted her hand, pressed a kiss against her knuckles, and walked out of the med tent.

*********

_“I saw you a few days ago,” _he wrote, penning the letter out when he couldn’t fall asleep._ “You’re doing well, and you told me about our daughter._

_We had a daughter, Clarke, after the Titanic. A baby I never got to meet._

_Except, I have met her. You named her Harper, and she recently married her childhood sweetheart, a boy named Monty Green._

_How fucking absurd is that?_

_I’ve decided I’m not acknowledging it. Not until after the war, at least. It’s too much right now. Green can’t be my friend and my son-in-law._

_I’ll make sure our daughter doesn’t have to go through losing him, though. She shouldn’t have to experience that.”_

*********

The war was over. They’d won.

It was over, had been for weeks, but Clarke hadn’t seen her husband since she was shipped out.

That was over two years ago.

There had been letters at first, but they’d both moved around so often that eventually the letters had stopped coming. She had no way of knowing whether he still received hers.

She was working at a hospital now, spending her days tending to wounded soldiers and hoping to see his face, hoping that what they’d gotten wasn’t all they would get in this life, that she wouldn’t have to die to see him again.

Those lives were the worst of them, the ones where they only got a moment before it over, before they never saw each other again.

She lived with Harper in her flat, both waiting for their husbands to return. Her friend being her daughter, technically speaking, was more than a little strange when she’d first heard it from Murphy, but she’d adopted his idea of mostly ignoring it.

They could deal with it together, when he got back.

A squadron had come in earlier in the day, shipped over from a field hospital, and she busied herself with checking a soldier’s vitals.

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing tonight, doll?” he asked, grinning up at her. He only had a broken arm, so as soon as the doctor declared him healthy, he’d be free to leave.

She pasted a smile on her face. “Working.”

The soldier, Shaw, clicked his tongue, shifting closer. “I’m sure you’d have more fun out with me.”

Her smile tightened. “And I’m sure my husband will appreciate me staying at work.”

Shaw, to his credit backed off, leaning back against his pillow. “Can I at least get your name?”

“Clarke,” she sighed, tucking his papers back into their pouch on his bed. “Clarke Murphy.”

He sat up straighter, cocking his head. “Murphy, huh?” he repeated, and she nodded slowly. “There’s a Murphy in my squad. I think his name’s John. He yours?”

Clarke’s heart stopped for a moment, hope bubbling up inside her. “Yes,” she breathed. “Is he—?”

“Here?” Shaw smiled. “Should be around here somewhere.”

Clarke didn’t stick around to say her thanks, just sprinted to the floor’s nurses’ station, glancing at every bed she passed.

“Is there a Murphy here?” Clarke asked, leaning over the desk. Maya glanced up at her. “Johnathan Murphy. Please. Look.”

Maya caught the desperation in her tone, flipping through the list of patients. “I don’t see one.”

Clarke grit her teeth, glancing down the hallway. “What about Green?” she asked, all but pleading now. “Montgomery Green?”

“Yes!” Maya looked up from the chart, and Clarke’s heart jumped. “Bed seventeen.”

“Call Harper,” she instructed, already running off again, dodging doctors and nurses and patients.

“Monty,” she breathed, stopping at the edge of his bed. Monty was under the covers, bandages covering his face and one of his arms, and his visible eye widened when he saw her.

“Clarke?”

She moved again, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. It’d been so long since she’d seen him, this man she’d only known a few weeks.

“Is Harper here?” he asked, and Clarke pulled back, shaking her head.

“She has the day off,” she told him. “We alternate days. It’s easier with—”

She cut herself off, hoping Monty hadn’t noticed her almost admission.

Harper hadn’t found out she was pregnant until after they’d been stationed, and had managed to keep it a secret up until Clarke was helping her deliver the baby in their tent late one night. She’d been discharged the next day, but had refused to go back to Canada, not when Monty was still over here.

Clarke had given her the address of her parent’s home in the country for her to go to until the war was over, and instructions to meet at her flat in London after the war was over. They’d lived there since Clarke had gotten home, them and baby Jordan.

(Baby Jordan who was, technically speaking, her grandson, but Clarke preferred to not think about that fact.)

Harper hadn’t told Monty, back when letters were still getting through, didn’t want him to have to think about missing out on their son while he was fighting. Clarke didn’t want to spoil the moment for her.

“Easier with what?” Monty asked, and Clarke floundered for a moment on how to save herself.

“Clarke?”

Murphy saved her instead, and she turned to look at him, standing near the end of the bed and staring at her in shock.

She jumped up, throwing her arms around him and holding him tightly, the emptiness she’d dealt with for years finally settling. He spun her around, captured her lips in a kiss.

She didn’t move away from him. Not when the soldiers in their beds around them whistled and cheered. Not when Harper pushed past, her hair half up in rollers and her two year old on her hip.

Nothing else mattered, not right now. She had her husband in her arms, alive and well. He was whispering to her about the life they could have. She could come back to Canada with him and the Greens. He’d build her a house and they’d have everything they could ever want, and Clarke began to let herself hope again.

Maybe this lifetime would be one of the good ones.

This time, maybe, they wouldn’t have to lose each other.

Sometimes they got a life together. Their hands met in a simple handshake and the memories came flooding in. They’d go through all the normal steps, dating, marriage, a house with kids and a dog, and they’d die old and happy together.

Sometimes they didn’t get anything. Once they met when he collapsed at a seaside restaurant, and she was the closest person who knew CPR. Her lips met his, breathing life back into him, and the memories came back, sharp and stark in the face of what they might never have.

“Come on,” she whispered, pounding his chest, memories of the love they’d shared, of the love they should share again still dominating her thoughts. “I can’t lose you! We’re supposed to have time!”

She kept at it, tears streaming down her face, until the paramedics arrived and took over, until they stopped and pronounced him dead and gone.

“I’m sorry,” they said. “How did you know him?”

“I don’t,” she admitted, curling into herself, one of her hands clutching his. “I just met him.”

It was the truth, but it wasn’t.

They got a life or they got a moment or they got somewhere in between. It was happiness and it was pain and it was love.

He went by many names. John. Johnathan. Murphy. She usually went by Clarke.

But it was always him and it was always her and it was always the ocean calling their names, bringing them together.

Murphy introduced himself to Luna and followed her instructions to pick a surfboard for the lesson. He studied the flames that decorated his chosen board, wondered vaguely how many times he’d wipe out before he managed to stand on it.

A girl dropped down onto the next board over, and she smiled at him when he looked at her.

“You ever surf before?” she asked, and he shrugged.

“I did it once on a video game,” he told her, and she laughed. “You?”

“A bit on vacations when I was a kid,” she said, and he nodded. “I haven’t done it since I was like seven, though, and I was never very good.”

“We’re gonna kick ass today,” he decided, and she laughed again. He decided he liked her laugh. “I’m Murphy.”

“Clarke,” she said, and shook his hand.

_Must be from a different life_  
_Been here before and it just feels right_  
_No, this ain't the first time for you and I, we ain't strangers  
_ _Strangers tonight_

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a pirate au half plotted that came from the pirate part getting way too detailed in the plotting stage and me being like "hmm this is gonna be like 100k easy so I’m gonna make the pirate part less intense" so like there’s more where that came from and it’ll be coming at some point.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed!
> 
> Go read all the other wonderful fics in this challenge and keep an eye out for voting so you can vote me to that $500k ;)
> 
> Comments and kudos are amazing and I love you have a lovely day!


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